If, as some insist, President Obama was born in Kenya, then surely Mitt Romney was born on another planet. Will his spacey delusions never end?
On election night, he delivered a gracious concession speech. Since then he has been using his outer-planetary imagination to explain why he lost. Among them are these two: Obama played a kind of Santa, promising “gifts” to that shiftless 47 percent of Americans who are takers, not makers; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, like a new Judas, betrayed the Republican Party by chumming up to Obama after the hurricane.
Will somebody please give Romney a reality pill?
The reason he lost is simple: A majority of Americans didn’t like what he stood for, or perhaps rather – didn’t stand for.
The following are just four reasons why most voters gave him thumbs-down.
1. His rich-brat elitist attitudes were alien to most. He kept making smug, condescending statements, many of them implying that poverty is some kind of personal failing. Especially defamatory was his lament to billionaire donors about the 47 percent of Americans he disdains.
2. Romney was a human chameleon. He so desperately wanted to be president, he would say and do anything to get the job, as if the presidency was some kind of fraternity to be attained through a superficial popularity contest. Romney did an about-face on almost all of his previous positions by trying to please the Republican Party’s new “base,” which was made rigid by evangelicals and the intransigent Tea Party folks, Obama-haters one and all.
3. When extremists made offensive statements about women and minorities, Romney didn’t express outrage. Instead, like a mouse, he squeaked out wimpy statements, trying so hard to agree and disagree at the same time with troglodytes who were talking about women as if they hadn’t left the Cave Age. When I watched the Republican Convention, Romney came across as a nice guy. It wasn’t long before I changed my mind. He’s not even a very nice guy, if you ask me – not after he so blithely dismissed half of Americans as leeches.
4. Romney and Ryan had no plan, except the one they promised they’d surprise us with once we elected them. They seem to think this country is one big “business.” It can be fixed with enough streamlining, downsizing and – not to forget – more big tax cuts for the already rich. Romney promised to be the “fixer,” but he came across as more “fiddler” than “fixer,” fiddling with one fickle opinion after another in his dizzying attempts to please any and all voters.
I will be accused once again of being nasty. So be it. Blast away. But let’s remember how vicious the ultra-right-wingers were (still are) in words and deeds to Democrats, to the president, to the media and to anybody else who doesn’t kow-tow to their party line. I have a right and a duty to defend against the vitriolic lunacy constantly spewed by right-wing extremists, including toxic radio “personalities” like Rush Limbaugh. They dish it out, I’ll toss it back.
For years, I’ve told good, rational Republican acquaintances they’d better stop courting the looney-tune extreme right or they’ll lose elections. And that is exactly what Romney did. He catered all too often to extremists, fearmongers and demagogues. In rejecting Romney, a healthy majority of Americans also rejected right-wing radicalism. Romney took an electoral beating, and he deserved it. He has nobody to blame but himself.
Author: Dennis Dalman
Dalman was born and raised in South St. Cloud, graduated from St. Cloud Tech High School, then graduated from St. Cloud State University with a degree in English (emphasis on American and British literature) and mass communications (emphasis on print journalism). He studied in London, England for a year (1980-81) where he concentrated on British literature, political science, the history of Great Britain and wrote a book-length study of the British writer V.S. Naipaul. Dalman has been a reporter and weekly columnist for more than 30 years and worked for 16 of those years for the Alexandria Echo Press.